With the recent announcement that Condé Nast Digital Britain (their UK New Media division) has hired a Social Media strategist to elevate its digital brands online, I've got to conclude that glossy publishing seems to be taking social media more seriously these days.
Now you might say that with online forums and the ability to comment on all manner of articles in different Condé Nast digital titles, that they have been "embracing social media since the beginning" or other such stuff. But this is clearly an obvious step for them towards embracing the conversation online.
Yes other publishing areas have been getting into the benefits of social media for a while back. One obvious approach that takes the two to in a new direction is True/Slant, run by a former news executive at America Online who worked at a variety of publications, including The Wall Street Journal. It covers a wide range of topics, such as politics, culture, sports, business, health, science and food.
It launched with 65 journalists, or "knowledge experts," assigned to specific topics who are only paid a small amount, but the aim is that they each become a "minipublisher" under the True/Slant brand. However they are also offered a share of advertising and sponsorship revenues generated from their individual pages (and even equity has been mentioned).
The site has been running since April last year, but has been criticised for being boring (by Paul Boutin at The Industry Standard) but it has provided some insight such as when Facebook changes their account privacy settings, therefore exposing the profiles of Facebook's executive team. In itself a great piece of opportunist journalism...
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